ISU: In brief

Friday

Teen dating violence can be a reflection of the relationship a teenager has with their parent or their parent’s partner, and whether that relationship was violent, Iowa State researchers say.

Research conducted by Brenda Lohman, an associate professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State, focused on psychological violence instead of physical violence. Lohman and her associated found that psychological violence between a parent and child had a larger affect than witnessing violence between two adults at home.

“It is true that if you grow up in a violence household you have a higher likelihood of being in a violent relationship,” Lohman said.

She said if a parent is more aggressive toward a child, “the child is more likely to be in relationships where they’re being victimized or perpetrating violence against their partner.”

The study was part of a special series of articles on teen dating violence edited by Lohman for the April issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. It examined patterns of violence over three decades to see how children exposed to psychological violence and family stress were affected in relationships later in life.

Researchers used data from the Iowa Youth and Family Project, a 24-year project that assessed families in rural Iowa, and video recordings of families and couples discussing or completing problem solving tasks.

Negative personality and the more sexual partners a teen has also increases the likelihood of risky behavior and violence in relationships, researchers said.

New evidence from Iowa State University researchers has found there is a strong connection between violent video games and youth violence and delinquency.

Matt DeLisi, a professor of sociology at Iowa State, said research has found that such a link exists even when controlling for a history of violence and psychopathic traits among juvenile offenders.

“When critics say, ‘Well, it’s not probably not video games, it’s probably how antisocial they are,’ we can address that directly because we controlled for a lot of tings that we know matter,” DeLisi said. “Even if you account for the child’s sex, age, race, the age they were when they were first referred to juvenile court … and a bunch of media effects, like screen time and exposure. Even with all that, the video game measure still mattered.”

The study was published in the April issue of Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice. It examined the level of video game exposure for 227 juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania. It showed that the frequency and affinity for violent video games were strongly linked with delinquent and violent behavior.

Douglas Gentile, an associate professor of psychology, has studied the effects of violent video game exposure and he said the results were somewhat surprising.

“I didn’t expect to see much of an effect when we got to serious delinquent and criminal level aggression because youth who commit that level of aggression have a lot of things going wrong for them,” Gentile said. “They often have a lot of risk factors and very few protective factors in their lives.”

Craig Anderson, a distinguished professor psychology and director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State, said while playing violent video games is not the sole cause of violence, it is a risk factor.

“What parent would go through the pain and all the effort it takes to really control their child’s media diet, if they don’t really think it makes any difference?” Anderson said. “That is why it is so important to get out the simple and clear message that media violence does matter.”

ISU architecture professor recognized for achievement

Rob Whitehead, an assistant professor of architecture at Iowa State University, has been awarded a top honor from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, for his creative achievement.

Whitehead has been awarded a 2012-13 Creative Achievement Award.

The award recognized a specific creative achievement in teaching, design, scholarship, research and service that advances architectural education, according to news release issued by the university.

The ACSA recognized Whitehead for his “positive and stimulating influence” on students by creating and teaching five semester-long courses in the architecture department’s integrated undergraduate building technology sequence. The courses reject the traditional method of teaching structural technology to students, which is based on formulas, abstract diagrams and right/wrong calculation-based assessment.

“Instead, it presents structural design as part of an architectural exploration,” Whitehead said.

Whitehead received a bachelor of architecture degree at iowa State and a post-professional master of architecture at the University of Texas.

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